Abstract
Timber truss systems are very efficient load-bearing structures. They allow for great freedom in design and are characterised by high material use in combination with a low environmental impact. Unfortunately, the extensive effort in design and production have made the manufacturing and application of these structures, in this day and age, a rarity. In addition, the currently mainly used steel gusset plates adversely affect the costs and environmental impact of the trusses. The authors’ goals are to optimise the design of timber trusses and to solely use wood for all building components. The two research areas, (1) optimisation of the truss geometry and (2) optimisation of the joints by using solely wood–wood connections, are addressed in this paper. The numerical optimisation strategy is based on a parametric design of the truss and the use of a genetic solver for the optimisation regarding minimal material consumption. Furthermore, first results of the tensile and compression behaviour of the chosen wood–wood connections are presented. The basic idea for the joints is to use a plywood plate as a connector, which is inserted into the truss members and fixed with wooden pegs. The housing of the new robot laboratory located at BOKU Vienna is considered a special case study for the research and serves as an accompanying example for the application of the research within the present paper.
Highlights
Wood is a natural inhomogeneous anisotropic material with discontinuities due to defects as, for example, pitch pockets, branches and fibre twist
Timber truss systems are very efficient load-bearing structures. They allow for great freedom in design and are characterised by high material use in combination with a low environmental impact
It can be clearly shown that structural optimisation of building components is of the highest importance for efficient use of wood
Summary
Wood is a natural inhomogeneous anisotropic material with discontinuities due to defects as, for example, pitch pockets, branches and fibre twist. To sum up this discussion, if timber is used as a construction material, minimisation of the quantity of material is a basic requirement Based on these facts, it can be clearly shown that structural optimisation of building components is of the highest importance for efficient use of wood. The authors focus within the presented strategy on solely using wood for all construction parts, including connections This has three major, quantifiable, benefits: (1) reduction of costs since steel parts have a major impact on the total costs of timber trusses, (2) improvement of the ecologic impact as steel production and processing consumes considerably more energy (currently mostly produced by using fossil fuels) and (3) improvement of fire resistance as steel parts heat up and have a negative impact on the load-bearing behaviour [12,13]. The housing of the robot laboratory was part of the current research strategies and serves as a case study
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